Pennsylvania to hold hearings on union allegations against Verizon.

Pennsylvania utility officials will hold hearings to examine the state of Verizon's copper network in response to complaints from a workers' union that Verizon has let older portions of its network fall into disrepair.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) in October petitioned the state for an investigation, saying that Verizon has done little to maintain copper wires in areas where it hasn't upgraded its telephone and DSL Internet service to fiber. Customers have suffered service outages and other problems as a result, with more than 6,000 Verizon customers submitting quality and reliability complaints to the state since 2012, the CWA says.

Further Reading

"For many years, VZPA [Verizon Pennsylvania] has intentionally failed to maintain its physical plant in non-FiOS areas of the Commonwealth," the CWA wrote. "The state of deterioration is now so advanced that poles are literally falling over, cables are sagging to the ground, animals and insects are infesting broken wiring cabinets, and the safety of VZPA's employees and the public is being jeopardized every day."

Verizon today told Ars that the complaint is just a “fishing expedition in search of headlines and publicity to be exploited in labor contract discussions.”

But the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission issued an order last week scheduling an Initial Prehearing Conference for March 18. An administrative law judge "will preside over hearings examining Verizon's maintenance practices and quality of service," the CWA said in a press release today.

The CWA's petition included many photographs of Verizon infrastructure, such as those above showing cross-connect cabinets and a remote terminal.

"Damaged cross-connect boxes and RTs [remote terminals] have a direct impact on the reliability of service to customers as wires get damaged, rained on, chewed by animals, or disconnected," the CWA wrote. "Damaged cabinets (even seemingly small openings) also are subject to infestation by insects and animals creating a significant safety hazard to utility workers who must access the cabinet, as well as a potential public health problem."

The CWA asked for an in-depth investigation and audit of Verizon's records and physical plant along with an order directing Verizon to fix any problems. The union pointed out that Pennsylvania can fine Verizon $1,000 per day for each violation of the state's Public Utility Code.

Pennsylvania isn't the only state where Verizon faces complaints about copper maintenance. "In South Jersey, officials in 16 towns in Cumberland, Atlantic, Salem, and Gloucester Counties have complained in a filing to New Jersey regulators about the condition of Verizon's copper lines, saying that the company has concentrated FiOS in wealthier and more densely populated areas of the state," The Philadelphia Inquirerwrote today. "The biggest complaint by South Jersey residents is lost phone service during rainstorms and on damp days."

New Jersey officials are still reviewing the towns' complaint and Verizon's contention that its service quality is better than state standards, the Inquirer report said.

116 Reader Comments

No secret copper is not part of Verizon's plans. It's expensive to maintain (not to mention the switching gear and batteries at the CO) and does nothing to help them compete in the broadband market.

Supporting a copper AND a fiber infrastructure isn't in the cards, either. The copper infrastructure is simply a millstone around Verizon's neck.

Someone, probably several someones, is going to die, when a snowstorm or hurricane wipes out power for longer than 8 hours, and they aren't able to call 911 on their fiber landline, because the power to the ONT is dead.

This has been Verizon's MO for at least 15 years, and it's the same in all their territories and their former now-sold-to-Frontier territories.

Verizon cares about one thing and that's wireless, and the hilarious profits that come from it. If Frontier had enough money to buy up all the VZ territory without going immediately going bankrupt, they would already be out of the wireline business all together.

No secret copper is not part of Verizon's plans. It's expensive to maintain (not to mention the switching gear and batteries at the CO) and does nothing to help them compete in the broadband market.

Supporting a copper AND a fiber infrastructure isn't in the cards, either. The copper infrastructure is simply a millstone around Verizon's neck.

Someone, probably several someones, is going to die, when a snowstorm or hurricane wipes out power for longer than 8 hours, and they aren't able to call 911 on their fiber landline, because the power to the ONT is dead.

I was initially skeptical about the representativeness of the photos in the article, but reading the complaint more fully did convince me that the problem was more widespread than a few select cross-connect boxes or knocked-over pedestals. I also see those problems a lot in poor and rural areas served by another big telco. I also know from talking to several technicians at that telco that maintenance work is being withheld, seemingly in an effort to force out the higher-paid, and almost always more senior field and facilities techs while shifting more and more of their workload onto lower-paid installers who aren't represented as heavily within the CWA.

Well, that's one way to penalize Verizon. Normally I'm all gung ho on punishing carriers through extraordinary legal remedies, but if Pennsylvania tried eminent domain of the last mile, Verizon would probably thank them for it and pull up stakes entirely. Maybe grabbing up the utility easements Verizon's wireless uses and/or charging them more for that would work.

No secret copper is not part of Verizon's plans. It's expensive to maintain (not to mention the switching gear and batteries at the CO) and does nothing to help them compete in the broadband market.

Supporting a copper AND a fiber infrastructure isn't in the cards, either. The copper infrastructure is simply a millstone around Verizon's neck.

Someone, probably several someones, is going to die, when a snowstorm or hurricane wipes out power for longer than 8 hours, and they aren't able to call 911 on their fiber landline, because the power to the ONT is dead.

Even if you can manage modern data speeds over short runs of telephone lines, they're just not built for it. Lines with who knows what internal construction and interference from neighboring conductors just doesn't seem like an effective way to go. Fiber and coax are good, but that doesn't mean we need to give up the backup offered by phone lines during power failures.

Larger batteries, with mandated replacement and testing are one option, though trying to drive traditional telephones with battery power seems a bit silly. (You could get far more run time with a dedicated VOIP handset.) The biggest problem is it's really hard to roll your own solution, because whatever the solution is has to interface directly with the coax or fiber. Sure, you can drive the modem, and a router, and a VIOP box of some kind with a UPS, but good luck getting that to last more than 8 hours.

Another option would be to simply run low voltage power along the fiber and coax, to drive phone service and perhaps even WiFi. (In fact, isn't there a standard for running power over coax?)

No secret copper is not part of Verizon's plans. It's expensive to maintain (not to mention the switching gear and batteries at the CO) and does nothing to help them compete in the broadband market.

Supporting a copper AND a fiber infrastructure isn't in the cards, either. The copper infrastructure is simply a millstone around Verizon's neck.

Someone, probably several someones, is going to die, when a snowstorm or hurricane wipes out power for longer than 8 hours, and they aren't able to call 911 on their fiber landline, because the power to the ONT is dead.

Even if you can manage modern data speeds over short runs of telephone lines, they're just not built for it. Lines with who knows what internal construction and interference from neighboring conductors just doesn't seem like an effective way to go. Fiber and coax are good, but that doesn't mean we need to give up the backup offered by phone lines during power failures.

Larger batteries, with mandated replacement and testing are one option, though trying to drive traditional telephones with battery power seems a bit silly. (You could get far more run time with a dedicated VOIP handset.) The biggest problem is it's really hard to roll your own solution, because whatever the solution is has to interface directly with the coax or fiber. Sure, you can drive the modem, and a router, and a VIOP box of some kind with a UPS, but good luck getting that to last more than 8 hours.

Another option would be to simply run low voltage power along the fiber and coax, to drive phone service and perhaps even WiFi. (In fact, isn't there a standard for running power over coax?)

Not sure about "standard", but it's an old technique to powering things on Coax.

No secret copper is not part of Verizon's plans. It's expensive to maintain (not to mention the switching gear and batteries at the CO) and does nothing to help them compete in the broadband market.

Supporting a copper AND a fiber infrastructure isn't in the cards, either. The copper infrastructure is simply a millstone around Verizon's neck.

Someone, probably several someones, is going to die, when a snowstorm or hurricane wipes out power for longer than 8 hours, and they aren't able to call 911 on their fiber landline, because the power to the ONT is dead.

THEN we will realise what we have lost by giving up copper.

Bleh, nobody cares about CO power anymore. Chances are you're not serviced directly by a central office anyway - most lines are connected to homes via DSLAMs or VRAD cabinets, which don't have backup power. And most homes don't have line-powered phones, either. I keep one around, but it's actually useless in a power outage because my landlines are VOIP and they're at the mercy of my own UPS as well as the VRAD up the street.

The state of these cabinets is pretty scandalous though. There's a lot of things you can say about AT&T, but their copper plant infrastructure is, in most places, the best shape it's been in decades. Mostly that's because it keeps the techs busy when they're not doing fiber work ("go clean up a crossconnect cabinet" is a default assignment when you're not on a paying job), but there's also this thing about pride in equipment with your logo on them.

Back when telco-owned payphones were a thing, you would not believe how much time and money was spent to keep them looking even as good as they did.

Verizon today told Ars that the complaint is just a “fishing expedition in search of headlines and publicity to be exploited in labor contract discussions.”

Judging by the story photos, they've caught some pretty big fish.

I'm assuming that Verizon sources its spokesweasels from a reality wholly orthogonal to the concept of 'truth', where phoneme sequences are judged purely according to their utility in profit maximization.

There's a lot of things you can say about AT&T, but their copper plant infrastructure is, in most places, the best shape it's been in decades. Mostly that's because it keeps the techs busy when they're not doing fiber work ("go clean up a crossconnect cabinet" is a default assignment when you're not on a paying job), but there's also this thing about pride in equipment with your logo on them.

Things must be different in my region. Around here the techs complain about being forced to sit around in their trucks because there's no jobs coming to them. One guy I talked with the other day seemed overjoyed to have to build some pairs across several poles up a busy highway, despite the weather coming in.

There has got to be (or should be, at least) some safety law that this is violating.

I've noticed quite often that the power companies move their lines to a new pole and cut off the top portion of the old pole to get it out of the way.

The phone and cable companies seem to move to the new pole much later, if ever.

I don't think I've ever seen a piece left dangling like that before though. That seems like it would be on whoever removed the bottom of the pole and usually the power company owns it.

Not that I 'm defending Verizon per se but they might not be entirely to blame on those,

My utility has an agreement with all the telcos in our area, that we just move their shit to the new pole along with our stuff when we replace poles, and we just bill them for it, so as to avoid all the dangly junk and attendant hazards. having said that, I see pretty much the same thing with regards to damaged or neglected DSLAM cabinets and equipment all over the place when I'm out in the field. Any time we suspect that the telco equipment attached to a pole I'm working on is faulty, we disconnect it until the telco can certify that it's working, or replaces it.

This is far from a Verizon-only problem. I'd suspect that every telco ever, at some point, made a judgment call on whether or not they could get away with leaving some piece of equipment in that state, so long as it kept working. Out here in Missouri, the prevailing attitude is "ignore it until it stops working, then kludge it back to functioning until there's nothing left to repair, then replace."

Not that i'm saying that Verizon doesn't deserve to have their feet held to the fire. They most certainly do. I'm just saying that they aren't unique in their neglect.

There has got to be (or should be, at least) some safety law that this is violating.

Probably, but the damn things are so dangerous to take down (there's a ground wire that runs down the entire pole) that it's easier to cut off the ends and strap it to the new pole until you can get a specially trained crew out. It's quite possible that they were in the process of taking out the pole, and when they ran a current tester near that section, found that it somehow was live. Safety rules say you immediately leave unless you're trained to handle killing power to the whole pole so it can be taken out.

Even worse, in your examples most of the wires were the power lines (they're almost always the highest thing on any pole), and there's no way to remove it without at least a brief outage. So again, do what you can and leave it for another time.

My utility has an agreement with all the telcos in our area, that we just move their shit to the new pole along with our stuff when we replace poles, and we just bill them for it, so as to avoid all the dangly junk and attendant hazards. having said that, I see pretty much the same thing with regards to damaged or neglected DSLAM cabinets and equipment all over the place when I'm out in the field. Any time we suspect that the telco equipment attached to a pole I'm working on is faulty, we disconnect it until the telco can certify that it's working, or replaces it.

This is far from a Verizon-only problem. I'd suspect that every telco ever, at some point, made a judgment call on whether or not they could get away with leaving some piece of equipment in that state, so long as it kept working. Out here in Missouri, the prevailing attitude is "ignore it until it stops working, then kludge it back to functioning until there's nothing left to repair, then replace."

Not that i'm saying that Verizon doesn't deserve to have their feet held to the fire. They most certainly do. I'm just saying that they aren't unique in their neglect.

Interesting. When the power pole behind our house snapped about 15 feet from the top, the utility came out, drilled a hole for the new pole, put it in and moved the power lines over. The phone and cable which were below the break were left on the stub of the old pole.

No secret copper is not part of Verizon's plans. It's expensive to maintain (not to mention the switching gear and batteries at the CO) and does nothing to help them compete in the broadband market.

Supporting a copper AND a fiber infrastructure isn't in the cards, either. The copper infrastructure is simply a millstone around Verizon's neck.

Someone, probably several someones, is going to die, when a snowstorm or hurricane wipes out power for longer than 8 hours, and they aren't able to call 911 on their fiber landline, because the power to the ONT is dead.

THEN we will realise what we have lost by giving up copper.

Bleh, nobody cares about CO power anymore. Chances are you're not serviced directly by a central office anyway - most lines are connected to homes via DSLAMs or VRAD cabinets, which don't have backup power. And most homes don't have line-powered phones, either. I keep one around, but it's actually useless in a power outage because my landlines are VOIP and they're at the mercy of my own UPS as well as the VRAD up the street.

The state of these cabinets is pretty scandalous though. There's a lot of things you can say about AT&T, but their copper plant infrastructure is, in most places, the best shape it's been in decades. Mostly that's because it keeps the techs busy when they're not doing fiber work ("go clean up a crossconnect cabinet" is a default assignment when you're not on a paying job), but there's also this thing about pride in equipment with your logo on them.

Back when telco-owned payphones were a thing, you would not believe how much time and money was spent to keep them looking even as good as they did.

Well this is one of those "many" homes that is served by a line-powered circuit. As for payphones, those were pretty hefty. One could almost rip one from it's attachment, and beat someone with it.

There's a lot of things you can say about AT&T, but their copper plant infrastructure is, in most places, the best shape it's been in decades. Mostly that's because it keeps the techs busy when they're not doing fiber work ("go clean up a crossconnect cabinet" is a default assignment when you're not on a paying job), but there's also this thing about pride in equipment with your logo on them.

Things must be different in my region. Around here the techs complain about being forced to sit around in their trucks because there's no jobs coming to them. One guy I talked with the other day seemed overjoyed to have to build some pairs across several poles up a busy highway, despite the weather coming in.

It may very well be regional. Big companies seldom act like they're one single one, especially when they're glued together from mergers and buyouts and badly integrated, both logistically and at an HR level.

...There has got to be (or should be, at least) some safety law that this is violating.

They did that right out in front of my house; it took them 2 years to come back and move the wires from the severed stub of the old pole over to the new pole. When I asked why, the person doing the swap told me they have a contracting crew that just installs new poles without disturbing the wiring, and later a different crew (possibly one qualified to handle high voltage?) comes around later and performs the re-attachment.

Bleh, nobody cares about CO power anymore. Chances are you're not serviced directly by a central office anyway - most lines are connected to homes via DSLAMs or VRAD cabinets, which don't have backup power. And most homes don't have line-powered phones, either. I keep one around, but it's actually useless in a power outage because my landlines are VOIP and they're at the mercy of my own UPS as well as the VRAD up the street.

CenturyLink DSL customer here. When the power blinks, so does my DSL. Battery? Ha, it doesn't even have really good capacitors.

The only surprise to me was that it was the Penn officials having this discussion. When I saw the title, I just assumed it would be in New Jersey.

Yeah, I live in a Fios area, and within a few miles of here I can find multiple nasty copper messes like this. Funny thing is, I have DSL (from a CLEC) as backup and it actually works at 13,000'.

Verizon may not be the only one, but they are the weasel-iest:

Quote:

"In South Jersey, officials in 16 towns in Cumberland, Atlantic, Salem, and Gloucester Counties have complained in a filing to New Jersey regulators about the condition of Verizon's copper lines, saying that the company has concentrated FiOS in wealthier and more densely populated areas of the state," The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote today. "The biggest complaint by South Jersey residents is lost phone service during rainstorms and on damp days."

New Jersey officials are still reviewing the towns' complaint and Verizon's contention that its service quality is better than state standards, the Inquirer report said.

That's not a lie, that's just pretending that the standards set by the bought and paid for PUC in NJ are reasonable standards.

Welcome to New Jersey. Now please hand over your property taxes to subsidize all the graft and general town clown shenanigans.

If Frontier had enough money to buy up all the VZ territory without going immediately going bankrupt, they would already be out of the wireline business all together.

Protip: Never ever ever use Frontier if you can possibly help it. Their security would be laughable if it weren't so horrifyingly nonexistent. Check out their website - they do not provide an online password reset. You have to call in to get your password changed.Yes, you read that right - you have to call their customer service line, tell them your account number and some additional data (address, SSN, or something equally as easy to obtain) and then they pull up your current password and read it out to you. They store passwords in cleartext and their service desk people have full access.Again, never ever EVER use Frontier as your ISP unless you have no other option.

If Frontier had enough money to buy up all the VZ territory without going immediately going bankrupt, they would already be out of the wireline business all together.

Let me tell you from personal experience, that Frontier is not any better. They run a very cheep operation that has terrible customer service. When calling customer service you can tell they didn't pay for knowledgeable representatives from India. They went for the warm body in the seat package. They then have the audacity to claim they have an American sounding name.

Yes Pradeep...you sound like a Bob. Where are you from? The great state of ... Atlanta? ... yes Bob, Atlanta is a wonderful state. What do you think about the Braves? How do you feel about them moving from Turner Field to Cobb County.

Oh I don't think its appropriate that they are being forced to move from their reservation. Discrimination to the Native American's is not tolerable.

Yeah.... Frontier Customer Service isn't much better.

The FCC lack of policy movement / progress-ism on this issue is awful. They should allow them to kill the copper networks. But also replace them with some fiber infrastructure. Everywhere there is copper there should be fiber.

Copper can do what fiber can't. This isn't about Internet. It's about POTS, which millions of Americans still rely on for their telephone service. Millions of Americans don't WANT the Internet, which is their right. But they shouldn't be penalized by cutting off their phone service just because maintaining the copper lines is expensive for the phone companies.

If they were SMART, they'd have developed an integrated, shielded cable that allows all forms of data transmission and laid that (Cable, fiber, POTS/DSL) instead of dedicated cable, dedicated fiber, dedicated copper each laid separately. Less overhead that way in maintenance even if the initial costs are a bit higher, and you can provide the service of choice at the other end rather than just a bit of this or a touch of that.

But letting copper go means millions of Americans will be paying MORE for a less capable system. Wheeler isn't going to force that on people who complain, and they need those complaints to force the cable companies (AKA Verizon et al.) to maintain their service. Thus far, Wheeler is responding exactly as he said he would - on a case by case basis without onerous regulations imposed arbitrarily from on-high. (Which would cause the Republican's heads to explode.) He needs to have a slam-dunk case before telling the cable companies what they must to to address the issues.

In every past FCC action since the imposition of Title II on cable companies, there's a long (what I call "propaganda") period making the case obvious to all except those who have been paid by the cable companies that the problem exists and must be fixed and therefore the FCC will fix it. In the case of POTS, the FCC has clear regulatory powers, but in today's moronic political climate, he has to "prove" the problem exists with a sufficient magnitude to address or Congress will pass a law saying, "Fuck you, Wheeler!" when it really means, "Fuck Americans on POTS!"

It will be addressed one way or the other. But until that case has been made painfully clear to everyone, nothing will happen. Most people don't know it's a problem yet. Once they do, and action is called for NATIONALLY (this is still a regional thing), then action will be taken. Until then, it's still just a regional thing and the FCC won't move. Hence why states are doing much of the heavy lifting in addressing (or exacerbating) the issue.

[...]Someone, probably several someones, is going to die, when a snowstorm or hurricane wipes out power for longer than 8 hours, and they aren't able to call 911 on their fiber landline, because the power to the ONT is dead.

THEN we will realise what we have lost by giving up copper.

The 8 hours is very optimistic. Batteries of a FIOS install are customer maintained. The BBU will beep when the battery needs to be replaced, but many people might not do that because they have to pay for the battery themselves (about $45.) But even if the battery isn't "dead", it degenerates. My 3 year old battery, a VZ approved and delivered unit, gave me 3h backup and that was it.

I've learned instead to have an old cell phone hanging on a charger with no SIM in it. All it can do is call 9-1-1. If I lose power, that old beast will keep battery for a good 3-4 days without problems. If cell towers are down, we probably have bigger issues anyway.

Verizon today told Ars that the complaint is just a “fishing expedition in search of headlines and publicity to be exploited in labor contract discussions.”

1. honestly that was my first thought.2. hold shit ars contacted someone and they actually had a response.

The damaged cabinet photos may be cherrypicked by the craft people, but it's a justified cherrypicking - no equipment in service should look like that.

Some looked like someone tried to break into the cabinet.

I don't think I've ever seen a locked cabinet here. We only lock some of our larger ground-level equipment. We just put a tamper clip on them. Then again, few people are brave enough to crack open transformer box, but there are people willing to steal cable/internet.

Customers have suffered service outages and other problems as a result, with more than 6,000 Verizon customers submitting quality and reliability complaints to the state since 2012, the CWA says.

We've been dealing with it for a hell of a lot longer than that. I moved into my townhouse in Bethel Park (just south of Pittsburgh) in 1999, and we had intermittent service disruptions almost from day one. Periodically we'd lose phone service (and it wasn't just us, it'd be the whole block of houses, if not more), requiring a call to Verizon, then their usual song and dance about taking a corded phone out to the NIC to confirm that yes, the house wiring wasn't at fault, and that yes, it's more than one household without service. Several days later a truck would show, and we'd have phone again, only for the pattern to repeat several months later. Finally a tech told us rats were getting into the local box and chewing the wires, which they'd have to come patch. This went on for years until I got sick of the whole dance and switched to Comcast's phone service. Haven't had a problem since.

what has always bugged me is why don't they have a power fiber combination line? Fiber for the data, and a 48v power line like they have now to power the equipment. That would have solved most of the power and communication issues.

in my area the copper lines are so bad they can't carry DSL So my only option is coax. the only option for coax is Comcast. Comcast charges extra high rates.(I am paying $100 a month for 25mbs connection)

Something has to break. we either need massive fiber rollouts or increased competition.

This has been Verizon's MO for at least 15 years, and it's the same in all their territories and their former now-sold-to-Frontier territories.

Verizon cares about one thing and that's wireless, and the hilarious profits that come from it. If Frontier had enough money to buy up all the VZ territory without going immediately going bankrupt, they would already be out of the wireline business all together.

I live in rural Pennsylvania, and would benefit from Verizon keeping their copper better maintained. What would be the best way to raise problems to be considered by the probe? An FCC complaint?

My problem:The power company replaced a mile of poles with taller ones. Two years later, Verizon has yet to move their cables off the old poles. I'm ~3 miles from cable internet, and the major cost of extending to our development is "make ready" work on ~50% of the poles which currently have no room for them to add their fiber/coax with the required clearances. If Verizon's wires were up-to-spec our neighbors could probably afford getting cable run.

If this probe does prompt Verizon to address the situation, I'm guessing they wouldn't do much/anything to address things that aren't brought to light.